Daily
postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 1750
Pennsylvania education policymakers – school directors, administrators,
legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, PTO/PTA officers, parent
advocates, teacher leaders, education professors, members of the press and a
broad array of P-16 education advocacy organizations via emails, website,
Facebook and Twitter.
These daily
emails are archived at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Follow us
on Twitter at @lfeinberg
A collection of
our postings that garnered the most traffic and interest during 2012:
Educators
and Spending Watchdogs Critical of Pennsylvania
‘Cyber’ Charters
CBS News By Pat Loeb December 27, 2012
6:40 AM
HARRISBURG, Pa. (CBS) —
Even as the Pennsylvania Education Department is considering applications for
eight new “cyber” charter schools, education advocates and taxpayer watchdogs
are calling for a moratorium on the applications. Critics cite a number of weaknesses with the
state’s existing cyber charters, and oppose any new ones.
Charter schools now big business nationwide
Management
firms bring money, clout to help operate them
By Eleanor Chute / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette December 30, 2012 12:17 am
The early charter
schools in Pennsylvania
were largely the product of passionate parents or community groups, who
sometimes planned their dream schools around the kitchen table.
But the picture has
changed dramatically since the charter school law was passed in Pennsylvania in 1997,
with an expansion of education management organizations that bring big money
and clout into the picture.
EDITORIAL:
In 2013, Corbett must fix pension crisis
We’re
not sure if Gov. Tom Corbett makes New Year’s resolutions. He probably should,
along with every member of the Pennsylvania Legislature. With just two days left in 2012, it’s time
they identify the top problem facing the Keystone State .
…..Forget the fiscal cliff.
This is Pennsylvania ’s
version of the fiscal abyss.
The state is teetering on the edge of a $41 billion pension shortfall. Taxpayers already are on the hook for a $1.6 billion public pension hit this year. That number is expected to balloon to as much as $4 billion a year and stay there for decades.
The state is teetering on the edge of a $41 billion pension shortfall. Taxpayers already are on the hook for a $1.6 billion public pension hit this year. That number is expected to balloon to as much as $4 billion a year and stay there for decades.
Pennsylvania on board with Common
Core standards for students
TribLive
By Rick Wills Published: Saturday, December 29, 2012 ,
10:05 p.m.
Starting next school year, public schools inPennsylvania and in much
of the country will use a more rigorous curriculum aimed at unifying
educational standards.
Starting next school year, public schools in
The
Common Core Standards seek to make U.S. students more competitive with
increasingly proficient students from other countries. These standards
emphasize teaching math more in-depth, and teaching English and language arts
through not just classic books but also historical documents and technical
manuals. States and school districts can decide specifics.
Critics
lashed back in some states that adopted the standards, but in Pennsylvania limited resistance resulted
when the Pennsylvania State Board of Education, a 21-member panel with 17
members appointed by the governor, approved their adoption in 2010.
Read more: http://triblive.com/state/pennsylvania/3165276-74/standards-education-state#ixzz2GXNlgp2X
State passes educational
buck onto local property owners
It's been a long time since the Reagan years,
and it seems most of the nation's non-elites are still waiting for his
policies' top-down economic trickle to reach them.
One trickledown effect,
however, took comparatively little time for its impact to be felt: A sharply
increased public school funding burden on local property owners.
Yes, we realize that
trickledown economics are supposed to eventually benefit citizens, and not ding
them for more money each and every budget year.
That's pretty much our
point.
Wall Street Journal
Fiscal Cliff Countdown December 30, 2012
Fiscal Cliff: Schools Brace for Automatic Cuts
to Education in 2013
Only five days are left before the country falls
off the "fiscal cliff." While there's been a lot of political
posturing, Congress doesn't seem close to figuring out how to cope with a
series of planned tax hikes and spending cuts set to kick in early next year.
So what does that mean for education? Well, it
means the automatic spending cuts that are set to hit just about every federal
program, including most in the U.S. Department of Education, could go through,
at least temporarily. For K-12 programs and Head Start, that would mean an
across-the-board cut of 8.2 percent. The trigger cuts are known in
Beltway-speak as "sequestration."
Fiscal cliff would be catastrophic to K-12 education, NSBA warns
lawmakers
NSBA School Board News by Joetta Sack-Min December 28, 2012
As lawmakers reconvene to discuss alternatives
to the fiscal cliff, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) is again
urging Congress and President Barack Obama to forge a bipartisan solution that
puts our children’s education first and protects their future, as well as the
future of our country. With the fiscal
cliff looming, more than 600 school boards have passed resolutions urging
Congress to stop the across-the-board cuts that would have a detrimental impact
upon their school districts through the sequestration process. These federal
cuts would total more than $4 billion this fiscal year. Furthermore, these cuts
would continue over a 10-year period and have a devastating effect on our
schools, eroding the base of funding for key programs year after year.
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